FAQs

What is the LLB in Legal Practice course?

The LLB in Legal Practice is an online course enabling you to combine essential legal knowledge with practical legal skills whilst gaining a valuable law degree. Aimed particular for working professions, this distance learning programme will enable you to still work, alongside studying for a professional degree.

Where will the CILEx/City Law School LLB programme take me?

The LLB in Legal Practice is a very flexible qualification which will open up a number of potential opportunities for you. With its combination of the academic and the practical you will acquire a unique set of skills.

In years three and four, you get the opportunity to choose practical elements which means you can shape the degree to fit your own interests and career aspirations. This might be in Family, Probate, Employment, Company, Conveyancing, or Civil or CriminalLitigation.The practical element can be paired with a matching academic module so you’ll have the best of both worlds.

Once you’ve finished the degree you will be eligible to enter the legal profession in a variety of different ways.

The course has been specifically designed to make you eligible for graduate membership of CILEx. This means that in order to qualify as a Chartered Legal Executive you will only have to complete the qualifying employment/work-based learning element of the qualification process. You can complete part of this whilst you are taking the course.

You might decide at the end of the course that you want to qualify as a solicitor or barrister. The LLB in Legal Practice will act as the basis for taking either of these routes. However, you will have to take a separate course – either the LPC for a solicitor or BPTC for a barrister - before you can undergo the work based learning element of these routes to qualification.

Of course, having a law degree is useful for a whole series of other areas of work given how law comes into every aspect of our lives. Graduates from our standard LLB have gone into training schemes with property firms, retail and investment banks, the Civil Service, non-governmental organisations such as charities and pressure groups as well as legally related employment such as the Law Commission.

You may, of course, find that you want to pursue further study of the law. City offers a variety of Masters and a doctoral programme that you could go on to.

Why did The City Law School partner with CILEx Law School to deliver this course?

We’re very excited to be running this programme in partnership with CILEx Law School – their expertise in delivering distance learning courses in law and legal practice is a great match with The City Law School’s extensive track record in the provision of legal education.

CILEx Law School currently has over 3,000 students on its courses and is the major provider of training for Chartered Legal Executives.

We’re pooling our vast experience in order to develop and deliver this LLB with a difference – a course aimed particularly at those in the workplace who are looking to gain a degree in law, but one that comes with an emphasis on practice, giving you a chance to tailor your course to the sector you’re looking to work in.

How will the course be taught and assessed?

Each module will start in September and in most cases will be assessed in June. The teaching will take place over 20 weeks, with the addition of extra scheduled weeks for working on assessments and catching up on required reading. During each teaching week you’ll have reading to complete and activities to participate in. These will involve you completing exercises that will test your knowledge and understanding.

You’ll have formative pieces of written work to complete in each module – one per term. These will be designed to improve your learning by identifying areas of strength and weakness, allowing you time to build on your knowledge and application by the time the exams come around. Your lecturers will give detailed feedback on these and use them as one way of monitoring your progress.

Generally speaking, assessment is via an end-of-year exam but some modules may have discrete mini assessments which count for a small % of the final grade.

Will I struggle with my studies after being away from a formal higher education environment?

Embarking on a new course, whatever your age or experience, will offer varying challenges, and may actually be pretty nerve-wracking to begin with. It could be some time since you’ve read anything academic, and although you might work in a field related to the law, you may have concerns about starting out as a student again and having to read case law and legislation.

We expect the majority of those on the course to be a little apprehensive about this and accordingly shape the LLB in Legal Practice in order that you’ll get plenty of skills practice early on – including note-taking, legal writing and research. Our face to face induction will give you an opportunity to make the most of contact with your lecturers and for them to ensure you have a firm basis to get going on the course.

Each subject will also offer you the chance to submit two formative pieces of work during the year, meaning you’ll get useful feedback on your written work so that you know where to build prior to the summer exams.

You’ll receive a great deal of support too, with CILEx Law School providing academic support in Year 1 via telephone, email or one of the online forums. From Year 2 you’ll also be allocated a personal tutor at City and will be able to book appointments by prior arrangement. In addition, you’ll be able to access all the support services at City, including both the Careers team and Learning Success, which incorporates both Dyslexia and Disability services and well as the Academic Learning Support Team.

How will I fit this in alongside my other commitments (work, family…)?

We would normally expect students on this course to factor in 6-7 hours per subject each week. This may sound a bit daunting at first, but we can help you design a study schedule that will work for you and you’ll soon get into the swing of things. Fitting everything in will get easier over time! We have built assessment writing and reading weeks into the design of the course, and there will of course be holiday periods where there will be no scheduled teaching. The year as a whole is longer than it would be for a normal face-to-face undergraduate degree, in order to give you that extra time for ensuring you’re on top of everything for the final exams.

How do I apply for the LLB in Legal Practice course?

To apply visit the CILEx website where you will find more details about the course, entry requirements and more.

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